For a moment Yuki San moved her lips. Still kneeling, she drew from her sash the red furoshike and took from it a small morocco note- book.
With light steps she crossed to a brazier, and with a pair of small tongs lifted from it a glowing coal. With steady fingers she pushed aside the many sticks of incense in the great brass vessel before the shrine, and making a little grave among the ashes, she laid within the burning coal the little book.
The blue smoke, rising slowly, hung for a moment above the girl's head as a halo, then rose to the feet of Buddha as in supplication for mercy, and was finally lost in the darkness of the heavy roof.
The girl watched with wide eyes and parted lips. Clasping her hands, she lifted her face and from her heart came a fervent, whispered prayer.
"I make empty my heart of all wicked. Buddha or Christians' God, I no can know which. Please the more better speak into my lonely life the word of peace."
She turned from the silent temple on her homeward way. She paused by the clump of bamboo where so short a time before she had gleefully tied together two boughs in the name of Merrit and herself. Tiptoeing to reach the high boughs which Merrit had held for her to tie, she drew them downward to slip the thong that bound them. After holding them to her soft cheek a moment, she let them fly apart, while she closed her eyes and whispered softly:
"Good-by, beautiful love, good-by."